QUESTION OF THE DAY

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

If you can help reader Matt please leave a message in the blog.

John-

My name is Matt and I’m doing some research for my boss regarding previous restaurants at our address. I’m aware of a few including Calypso and Banana Reef at 514 state. You wouldn’t happen to know about any other restaurants or businesses at 514 state st.? I wanted to put together a “fun facts” about Sandbar and you were the first person I thought of that might know about this. Please let me know if you can help me in any way.

Haha yep, that was where we started every Thursday night. I remember having a few at our place in IV first then I’d just leave with $20 and my ID. I could get 4 drinks for $10 at Calypso, and then with the rest of my $10 I could get another couple drinks elsewhere. Plus someone was always buying shots for the group.

That was the only good thing about Calypso, otherwise I was not a fan.

we used to call it the “gold” room of joes cafe. i think it was because the walls were painted a gold color. it was actually an additional dining room of the original joes. the access was between the cook’s and the bar. i remember it being this from at least 1982, until joe’s moved in 1984/85.

514 State St was Joe’s annex, part of the original Joe’s. Nancy Perry moved to the corner and leased the annex and vacant lot to MBS Inc. They started Banana Reef and the Beach Shack which was on the other side of the rear parking lot . Marco Frasto purchased the Banana Reef and started Calypso. He defaulted and MBS took over again and changed the concept to The Ketch. The Ketch and Beach Shack were sold to Kiss radio.